1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the blanching of nuts, preferably peanuts, and more particularly is directed towards a new and improved method and associated apparatus for blanching peanuts in a quick, efficient manner, utilizing relatively simple, compact equipment.
2. Description of The Prior Art
In many food products in which peanuts are an ingredient, blanched nuts usually are preferred over unblanched nuts. A blanched nut is one in which shelled nuts have their hard dark outer skins removed. These nut skins have a slightly bitter flavor and hence are objectionable from the stand point of taste in a food product. Also, the dark skin tends to discolor certain food products such as peanut butter, for example.
Peanuts may be blanched by a number of known techniques and equipment, such for example by water blanching techniques as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,558,899 and 2,964,080. Dry peanut blanching procedures and equipment may be used as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,702,574 and 3,196,914. If the nuts are to be blanched by dry techniques it has been the practice to first slit the nut skins using cutters of the sort shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,217,764. The slit skin is more easily removed during the abrasive action taking place in the dry blanching operations.
While dry blanching equipment of the sort shown in the above patents has proven to be very efficient, particularly in handling large quantities of peanuts, the equipment has been quite large and not particularly suitable for short run operations or low production output.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel method and associated apparatus for blanching peanuts utilizing simple, low cost blanching equipment requiring a minimum amount of space.
Another object of this invention is to provide a novel method and associated apparatus for efficiently blanching peanuts on a continuous basis using dry blanching techniques.